Words from Tanzania

Just four weeks ago, I was invited by my 14-year old friend John (picture) to watch him and his friends play a semi-organized soccer match with the local Compassion International team. Compassion Internation is a world wide organization which matches donors with vulnerable children, of which there are plenty here in Same.

John’s group of friends are from the neighborhood, and there are kids in ages ranging from 9 to 16 years old on this pickup team, called the Dogo Dogo Stars. After their match with the fully-supported and uniformed Compassion team, John invited me to come over and meet the coach, George, who is 16 years old and attends secondary school. I think John wanted me to get involved with his team in some way. I quickly found out that they wanted very much to play and practice, but don’t have a ball (they usually use plasic bags formed and tied into a sphere). I saw their enthusiam and we went downtown and found a puncture-proof ball. They officially practice on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but since getting a ball, I see that there are kids playing soccer every day at the nearby Compassion field.

Since that first day just four weeks ago, we have been to Moshi a couple times to order and purchase jerseys and socks, have contacted other groups in the area about forming a league, have contracted with an earth-moving crew and leveled their rutted and hilly soccer field, enlarged the steel goalposts and just two days ago,met with four of the area coaches and have formed a league with a schedule! Today, Sunday, September 16 is the first game of this league, and the teams playing are the Dogo Dogo Stars and another Compassion team sponsored by the Pentecosts.

We have so many players and so many ages that I insisted we have an A (13 – 16 yrs) and a B group (9 – 12 yrs) for every team. So, we have six teams in our league, each with an A and a B group. Hope to report more on this community-building activity.